


i got my reasons (but darling i can’t explain)

by artificialmac



Series: Brooke Lynn Hytes and Other Residential Neighborhoods in New York [20]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, M/M, Post-Break Up, Stream of Consciousness, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 02:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21047081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialmac/pseuds/artificialmac
Summary: Brooke keeps track of the darndest things. (And ignores the important things.)





	i got my reasons (but darling i can’t explain)

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Midnight Train (Sam Smith) and My My Love (Joshua Radin) and cried. So here’s a drabble about B and V. Are you getting sick of these yet?

She walked away.

Well not really walked so much as stumbled.

The bartender shoots Brooke a worried look, but she doesn’t mind him. Doesn’t mind the fear in his eyes or the tears in her own.

It’s three am because of course, it is. Because that’s how time passes now. It goes from sunlight to three am in the span of minutes. The days run together into one long morning/night that seems to end and begin the moment a bottle hits her lips. Or the moment he comes to her mind.

She doesn’t know where she’s going, only knows the name of the hotel and his middle name now. And it shouldn’t phase her anymore, she does this every night, but it still hits her the same as the first time she saw him after.

After the show ended.  
After they went their separate ways.  
After his love for her turned into a vice rather than a virtue.

It still hits her just as hard as their first kiss after the breakup.  
Their first kiss in nearly a year.

It hadn’t felt the same.  
It had felt like lovers who were trying too hard to pretend they were fine.  
It had felt too familiar to be their first kiss in nearly a year.

Maybe it’s because she spent nearly every night for the past year committing every detail of the way his hand felt on her face to memory.  
Maybe it’s because she fell asleep with the ghost of his legs tangled up in hers.  
Maybe it’s because she often fell asleep with someone who wasn’t him.

Maybe it’s because she often fell asleep with someone who looked nothing like him so she could pretend she was over it. Pretend it didn’t mean anything that none of the strangers that graced her bed for the night traced the bridge of her nose with careful fingertips before falling asleep the way he used to.

His mega-watt smile didn’t wake her up in the morning, the sun did.  
His loud banging around in the kitchen didn’t rouse her from her bed, her manager’s voice did.  
His meticulous grooming technique didn’t make her late to every engagement, her own reminiscing did.

A man shakes a rattling cup at her as she passes an alley, she doesn’t even make eye contact. Can’t be bothered to look at anyone else’s humanity right now, she can hardly cope with her own.

She walks two more blocks before feeling guilty and turning back around. By the time she passes the alley again, the man is gone.

She walks on.

She passes two liquor stores, three vape shops, and one bookstore. She doesn’t know when she started counting.

One  
The number of times she’s said his name in the past ten minutes.

Twenty-seven  
The kisses they’ve shared since the breakup

Nine  
The times she thought he loved her

Sixteen  
The times she’d sworn it was the last time.

And she’d lost count of the times she knew she loved him

The pavement was more even now. Her shoes didn’t struggle as much as they had earlier, or maybe that was the booze wearing off.

But her next thoughts made her think the booze was only just hitting her.

She had left him.  
Not because she didn’t love him

but because she did

She felt like she had committed a crime when she thought about it. She had stolen and lied and hurt and she ended up being fine. She had wreaked all the havoc and garnered all the benefits.

It made her feel dirty and wrong.

Almost as dirty and wrong as she felt when she thought about how she was sleeping with him still.

She was leading him on. Or maybe she was leading herself on.  
Or maybe she was making up for not loving him in a way he could understand.

She had been running her whole life. Had never stopped to settle down. Had never stopped to think about what she was missing.

He slowed her down.

Made her think.  
Made her weak.

She had to keep running.

So she had left.  
She had broken his heart and her own with four little words.  
She hadn’t ever belonged to anyone before. Hadn’t ever thought she wanted to.  
She knows better now.  
Knows that being with someone is different than being owned by them.  
Knows that a relationship isn’t a prison, but a safe haven.

But it’s too late to tell him.

Too late, too late.

It is too late now.

It’s five am because of course, it is.

A few memories ago she had gotten back to her hotel.

She climbed the stairs because it took longer.  
She walked down the hallway slowly because it took longer.  
She knocked on the door quietly at first because it took him longer.

“How was your walk, baby?” Jose kissed her in greeting.

“I missed you.” She says. And she means it.

“You were only gone ten minutes.”

“Really? It felt like hours.”


End file.
